


the element of choice

by girlsarewolves



Category: Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, DC Extended Universe, Man of Steel (2013), Supergirl - All Media Types, Superman - All Media Types, Superman/Batman: Apocalypse, Superman: Unbound
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Fusion, Angst, Crossovers & Fandom Fusions, Family Feels, Gen, Grief, Mourning, Not Canon Compliant, brief descriptions of violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-10
Updated: 2018-03-10
Packaged: 2019-03-28 21:34:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,032
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13912647
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/girlsarewolves/pseuds/girlsarewolves
Summary: The last thing she remembers is her parents; her mother kissing her goodbye before backing away; her father sending her off with tears in his eyes. She knew, as the ship closed and cryosleep overcame her, that she would always remember Krypton first as that image; her family letting her go.Her family staying behind.





	the element of choice

**Author's Note:**

> This story is part of the [LLF Comment Project](https://longlivefeedback.tumblr.com/llfcommentproject), which was created to improve communication between readers and authors. This author invites and appreciates feedback, including:  
> Feedback
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>   * Short comments
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> 
> This author sees and appreciates all comments, but may not reply due to anxiety, lack of energy, pressed for time, or a combination of all of the above. (I do try to reply, but can't promise anything!) [LLF Comment Builder](https://longlivefeedback.tumblr.com/post/170952243543/now-presenting-the-llf-comment-builder-beta)
> 
> Also, if you don’t want a reply, for any reason whatsoever, feel free to sign your comment with “whisper” and I will appreciate it but not respond!

* * *

The last thing she remembers is her parents; her mother kissing her goodbye before backing away; her father sending her off with tears in his eyes. She knew, as the ship closed and cryosleep overcame her, that she would always remember Krypton first as that image; her family letting her go.  
  
Her family staying behind.  
  
She looks at Kal, and sees her aunt Lara staring back at her. Her father and uncle's tired smile. She reminds herself that he's her family now. Older, wiser, world-weary and battle-hardened by the time she reaches earth. They were supposed to be in each other's place; she was supposed to find him, guide him. But now she's the one who needs guiding, and the wrongness of it all makes her want to cry.  
  
It feels like she's crying all the time these days though. So she screams instead. Screams and shrieks in Kryptonian, until her lungs finally start to burn. When she regains her composure, she realizes she's been at it for hours, and Kal's back from saving this new world.  
  
Her cousin stares at her with pity and sympathy and an understanding he doesn't truly possess. He doesn't understand what it's like. He was an infant when Jor El and Lara sent him to Earth. He probably had never even felt the beautiful red sun of Krypton; he was her family's secret hope. He had to be hidden away, kept safe.  
  
'Do you remember your mother, Kal El?' she wants to ask him. 'Do you look in the mirror and see her? You have her eyes, her dark hair. Do you remember what Jor El looked like when he had been up for days on end? That weary smile you keep giving me, it's his. It's my father's. It's from their mother, they told me. Their father never smiled, though he was a loving soul; that was what they had often said.'  
  
Kara doesn't talk about Krypton and their family though. Because every time she tries, a tight knot forms in her throat; it's heavy and choking, and she hates it. So Kara doesn't talk of home. She asks Kal who he's saved lately, and when can she meet his mother ('Your mother is Lara,' she bites down) or the human woman that he's in love with.  
  
And when he leaves her alone to save the world again or to spend time with his human family -the only family he's ever really known - she can't help but bitterly wonders where was Krypton's superman when they needed him.

* * *

  
Her first day on Earth she causes a three car pile-up when she runs half-naked into the intersection, blows up a police car and destroys a park when her heat vision is triggered by the flashing lights, and breaks the glass of every building in a two mile radius when she shrieks in agony because all her senses are turned against her; she can't breathe, she can't breathe.  
  
And then Kal El is there (and the other one, the one always in black and always staring her down like she's wrong and shouldn't be here), speaking in broken and horribly accented Kryptonian - but it's her aunt and her uncle and her father looking at her.  
  
So she clings to him and collapses. When her eyes are shut, all she can see is her mother's hand saluting her farewell; 'Live free, Kara,' she had whispered into Kara's hair as they embraced one last time. 'Let this new world free you of your burden; be free to choose, and guide your cousin.'  
  
Kal has nothing in him of her mother, and sometimes she resents him for that.

* * *

  
"General Zod was once a hero on our planet," she says blankly when Kal El tells her of the other Kryptonians that came before her.  
  
Kal's head lowers, and Kara sees guilt in her aunt's blue eyes. "Whatever he was on Krypton, he came here as a man bent on genocide. He lost his mind when he lost his planet." His voice is quiet but firm; like he's trying to remind himself of that as well as her.  
  
'So what does that say about my mind?' she doesn't say out loud. Tries not to think it at all. "He was starting to lose his mind before Krypton died. Committed treason, among many other horrible things. All in the name of saving Krypton."  
  
"I didn't want to kill him. But he gave me no choice."  
  
More to herself, Kara whispers, "No, I don't suppose he could have." She feels the questioning gaze of her cousin, but doesn't bother to expand. She knows Kal El is aware of the codex, of Kryptonians' predetermined paths in life - but he can't understand it, not really.  
  
Kal can never comprehend the way she cried herself to sleep countless nights because no matter how hard she tried, how much she studied, she could not learn the advanced science classes she was taking. Kal can never know the shame of being a failure at the one thing you're meant to be.  
  
Kal is Clark Kent, reporter. Kal is Superman.  
  
Kara isn't sure what she is.  
  
"Maybe Zod lost his mind when he couldn't win the last battle Krypton had offered him," she says instead. "When you are meant for war and there is peace, what then? When the planet is in danger, but you can't stop it and no one will let you try, what do you do?"  
  
"You don't try to destroy an entire race to recreate your own." There's an edge to her cousin's tone, though she knows it is directed at her; he is angrier than her father and uncle ever were, angrier than her mother or her aunt.  
  
Kara watches him leave the room, wondering if the anger is from Zod - or this planet. She realizes later, while alone, that it might be from her.

* * *

  
Flying and heightened senses are nice, but Kara takes to her new increased strength the quickest (or, according to the cranky one that refuses to tell her his actual name, the most worrisome). She punches ice that's twenty feet thick and watches it crack and crumble; when she kicks anything in her way goes it hurdling through the air.  
  
(Well, except for Kal; he stumbles back at most.)  
  
"She's too reliant on her strength," dark and moody tells her cousin while she works on the moves Kal is teaching her. "She goes overboard. If she punches a human -"  
  
"She'll hurt them, maybe kill them. I know, I'm working on it." When he gets defensive about her, Kal can sometimes gets that hard tone that comes when he talks of Zod and the other Kryptonians that came here, or when he talks of a man named Lex Luthor.  
  
It's nice knowing that dark and moody gets that treatment too, sometimes directed at him even; especially over her.  
  
"No, Clark. She won't kill them, she'll pulverize them."  
  
Kara moves over to dark and moody - so fast that even she's startled - her eyes narrowed and jaw clenched. She raises her hand and flicks his shoulder, barely moving his cape, let alone his body. "I'll be careful when I need to be careful." She scowls at him and then even Kal for good measure, before stalking off to a quieter, more private area of the fortress.  
  
She refuses to train anymore whenever Batman's there.

* * *

  
Kara is thirteen when the orbs fall from the sky, unfurling and morphing into humanoid shapes of unfeeling metal and wires. The daughter of two high profile scientists on Krypton, intended to follow in their footsteps. Intended - should she strive to reach her full potential, her mother keeps telling her - to surpass her parents, maybe her Uncle Jor El, in the field of science.  
  
Perhaps she will be a researcher like her father, or go into a more hands on field like her uncle. Perhaps a healer, like her mother. Perhaps she will be a pioneer in newer fields, making breakthroughs, solving the planet's problems. Perhaps she will find a solution to the need for energy to keep the citizens living in comfort and security, one that does not include using Krypton's core. Perhaps she will fail to meet the expectations laying heavy on her shoulders.  
  
But then the robots fall like meteors, littering the capitol city of Kandor. They come without warning and kill without mercy.  
  
Kara sees; sees the the blood and brain matter when the robots kill, sees their wires and probes violate those that have whatever it is they are looking for. She sees bodies dropping, hears the shouts and screams; Kara smells the unmistakable scent of fear (acrid and bitter, like vomit and blood and sweat all mingled together).  
  
Kara takes it all in, and she feels helpless. Her own terror is part of the collective fear she smells, permeating the air around her. The robots are closing in, and her parents are shouting, and the last essence of her childhood suffocates on the realization that she and her parents and her aunt and uncle and her friends and all her people will all die.  
  
(There is a ship hovering above the capitol, shaped like a skull with soulless red eyes. It is the most frightening thing Kara has ever seen or ever will see, she knows this. Inside it is the force behind the monsters killing and probing everyone around her. Inside it is the force behind all the nightmares and hysterics and breakdowns that will come.)  
  
They might all die today, and Kara is paralyzed.  
  
And then they come; the soldiers, the military, the planet's protectors and warriors. They come and destroy the robots still on the ground, chase away the ones returning to their monstrous ship. They fire at and follow the ship until it disappears in a blur entering hyperspace.  
  
Kandor is in ruins, people and plants and animals and whole chunks of land gone. The sky is empty, but it's vastness looms over like a threat. And the fear, the helplessness - that's all still there.  
  
Kara stares at the men and women who came and saved her and her family, at their armor and their weaponry and the resolve on their faces; she thinks to herself that she would rather be strong like them than smart like her parents. She thinks that she would rather have a weapon than notes and samples.  
  
But this is Krypton, and her life is decided.

* * *

  
She wonders if she should tell Kal El about Brainiac's attack and her father's later discovery, and how it renewed Jor El's warning to the council that his theory concerning Krypton's fate was correct.  
  
She wonders if she should tell Kal El that it was General Zod who led the strike against Brainiac, or Sub-Commander Faora who guarded the small group of survivors she had been part of.  
  
What would he think, if he knew that Zod and the others like him were the closest thing to Superman that Krypton had possessed? But she doesn't find out. She never says these things out loud.

* * *

  
"This food is delicious!" Kara declares for the fourth or fifth time as her adoptive aunt fixes her a second slice of pie. "Kal - I mean, Clark - he kept bringing in food but none of it was as good as this!" And she means it; she suspects that her cousin was bringing her crappy, synthetic food so that she would better appreciate his Earth mother's cooking.  
  
If that was the plan, it worked.  
  
Martha Kent smiles at her like she really is family. Her hand squeezes Kara's shoulder (though Kara barely registers the sensation). "Well, Clark can be a little helpless sometimes when it comes to the kitchen." She laughs a little at Kal's expense, and Kara smiles as well.  
  
Kal pretends to look exasperated, but his eyes are twinkling.  
  
The food is different on Earth; indulgent and rich. Sometimes she catches the familiar taste of synthetic like the food back home (where the soil was too harsh and tainted, the water too acidic to grow natural ingredients).  
  
"There were some families - council families mostly - who had, what's the word...greenhouses?" Kara glances at Kal before continuing, waiting until he nods. "They had greenhouses where they were able to grow some plants, so their food was better. But most of us all had synthetic food. This is definitely better."  
  
Martha seems to enjoy the compliment, and Kara doesn't feel too bad about the half-truth.  
  
It's not better; it tastes better, sure, but it isn't better to her. Better for her maybe, but isn't what she was raised on from the moment she could eat solids. It isn't the food that she knew all her life and was only vaguely aware there was something wrong with it. It's delicious and full of flavor and maybe healthier, maybe not, maybe both.  
  
But it's not home.  
  
Everyone seems happy though, and Kara wants to be happy. She wants to fit in with Kal El and his life. She wants Martha to like her, and she wants to meet the reporter Kal is involved with. She wants to learn life on Earth.  
  
She wants to know what it's like to choose what to do with yourself.

* * *

  
"I hate you," she says to his face. Her words are Kryptonian, but she knows that he gets the gist of it. She's positive that he gets the gist of everything.  
  
"I don't doubt that you are loyal to your cousin. It's whether or not that loyalty will keep you from wreaking havoc on this planet that concerns me," he tells her, as if she needs him to clarify what he means, as if that makes it okay when he tells her she's dangerous, she's not ready, she's a liability. That she might hurt Kal El or those he's close to.  
  
"You don't know me then," she spits back.  
  
Batman's face is like stone. He's like a cold, emotionless statue that can walk and talk and take on her cousin without fear. "You're right, I don't. And that's what worries me. I was...wrong about your cousin. I might be wrong about you. But I've seen what Kryptonians raised on your home planet can do to this world."  
  
Kara snorts. "I don't think you worry about anything. I don't think you feel anything."  
  
He stares at her, his face blank and hard like always. And then one corner of his mouth turns upward slightly in a humorless smile; even when he smirks it's grim and somber. "Then you don't know me," he says dryly and walks away.

* * *

  
Kara tries to like Lois for Kal El's sake. She tries, but something about the way Lois looks at her makes it hard. She doesn't like the thousands of questions in Lois' eyes, or the wariness that reminds Kara of dark and moody. She doesn't like the tension that Kal keeps pretending isn't there when Kara and Lois are near each other.  
  
'You don't trust me,' she thinks when she meets Lois' eyes. 'You don't believe me. Stop pretending for Kal's sake that you aren't worried for his safety.'  
  
She supposes that in some ways, she should appreciate Lois' suspicion. Someone has to take care of Kal El, and Martha can't do that these days. Someone has to look out for Kal El (and Lois is better than Batman). So she tries to relax and be 'normal' to make it easier. She tries, because Lois was there for Kal when Kara wasn't.  
  
And now Kal is there for Kara when it should be the other way around, but she still feels seventeen and freshly orphaned of her entire planet and almost her entire species.  
  
The tension lasts a week before Kara and Lois are finally alone around each other while Superman is off saving the world, and Kara finally tells Lois to ask her questions. She intends to put Lois' fears to rest; she doesn't mean to wind up sobbing while Lois holds her and strokes her hair. It makes her think of her mother, and she cries harder.  
  
Later Lois makes popcorn, and they watch 'chick flicks', and Kara thinks that Lois might be her favorite person on Earth.

* * *

  
It's just over nine months when Supergirl is finally introduced to the world. It feels strange, being without armor - but Clark does it, so Kara decides that she can make do as well. Superman doesn't need armor, Supergirl doesn't either.  
  
Clark tells her that people will be nervous at first. That humans are still wary of him sometimes. He tells her that they can't help it, not after Zod and the others. He promises her that she'll win them over; together, they'll help humans put aside their hatred and distrust of Kryptonians and realize that Kryptonians are not so different from humans.  
  
There is good and bad in everyone, and some people make the wrong choices.  
  
Kara bites her tongue before she tells Clark that maybe Zod and Faora and the others didn't make their choices, their choices were made for them when they grew in the genesis chambers of Krypton. She knows he'll point out how well she's doing; what a difficult time she has with her predetermined career field, how easily she's taken to training to be a hero like him.  
  
'Maybe he's right,' she thinks when she sees herself for the first time as Supergirl. She remembers her father with tears in his eyes as he sent her away; she thinks of her uncle, dying as he did the same with Kal.  
  
She thinks of Faora standing in front of her and her parents and remembers wanting to be like the female soldier. She thinks of General Zod ordering the protection of the capitol's citizens.  
  
"I'll succeed where you failed."  
  
And when she helps Clark save people from an earthquake, when she stops a man from kidnapping a child, when she and Clark chase down men who had nearly beaten someone to death in an alley, she does feel like a success. For the first time since before Brainiac attacked, she feels like she can surpass her parents' expectations.  
  
And it's all her choice.

**Author's Note:**

> Another story from the vaults - written in 2013 after seeing both MoS and _Superman: Unbound_ back to back (and having seen _Superman/Batman: Apocalypse_ by that point). I actually finished this before BvS was announced lol, so forgive my errors in characterization. But idk, I'm still kind of proud of this one so I'm sharing it. Like my Zod and Faora first meeting fic, this goes into a lot of headcanons, theories, and just my general fascination with Kryptonian culture and their 'pre-destination vs. free will' ideals that were going on in MoS, plus bringing in backstory and events based on the _Apocalypse_ and Unbound movies.


End file.
